Tales of Symphonia

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A full preview complements more than 20 new screens.

By IGN Staff

In the nearly two years since the GameCube's release, virtually every major gaming genre has made its way onto the system. Action, Racing, Fighting, Adventure and so on have all been well represented, with one glaring exception: The classic RPG. Sure there's Evolution Worlds and Skies of Arcadia, but both of those are little more than direct ports of years-old Dreamcast titles. Those Cube owners lusting for some new monster-killing, experience building, reluctant teen out to save the world goodness have been pretty much out of luck.

It's this gaping hole in the GameCube library that Namco's upcoming Tales of Symphonia looks to fill. With classic RPG gameplay, colorful graphics and the prerequisite epic plot, Symphonia looks poised to hit all the right bases necessary to create a successful role-playing experience.

Features

Character designs by famed comic artist Kosuke Fujishima

The sequel to Tales of Destiny and Tales of Phantasia

First Tales game w/3D characters

Blends real-time and turn-based elements

Attack with both melee weapons and spells

Control a party of up to four characters

Ultra-super cute anime styling

A Gargantuan 2-disc adventure

Tentative release date: 4/01/2004

Don't let the lack of a number after the title fool you: Tales of Symphonia is the latest in a long-running series, each bearing the word Tales in the title. US Gamers will be most familiar with the PlayStation's Tales of Destiny, but the series has seen Japan-only iterations on a number of other systems, including the SNES and Game Boy Color.

Of course, not every game with the word Tales in the title is part of the series. Duck Tales, for instance, or Bubsy in: Fractured Fairy Tales are thankfully unrelated to Tales of Symphonia.

Though the Tales series may not have gained a great deal of notoriety here in the states, the franchise is phenomenally popular in Japan, eclipsed only by the juggernaut Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior games. In fact, the Japanese are so enamored of Tales that Symphonia's release will be marked by the release of a special GameCube bundle, featuring a limited edition green system, a copy of the game, a memory card, a Game Boy Player, and a book chock full of artwork and other assorted game-related nuggets. Whew!

Gameplay Like all self-respecting RPGs, Tales of Symphonia looks to be heavily story-driven. As seventeen-year-old orphan Lloyd Irving, you and your buddies will have to save not one, but two worlds from complete and utter destruction. You see, your home, Silvaland, is inextricably linked to an alternate world known as Teseila. When one world is too prosperous, the other is doomed to suffer, and vice versa. The only way that both worlds can live harmoniously is if they can maintain a careful balance of happiness and suffering. Well, as you can probably guess this balance gets out of whack, monsters start attacking and it's up to a band of teenagers to save the day. Classic stuff.

Symphonia's battle system appears, at least superficially, to resemble that of Grandia or Star Ocean. Gone is the two-dimensional, fighting game-esque combat found in the Tales of Destiny games. Instead, players fight monsters in a three-dimensional plane, free to run about at will, using melee attacks as well as offensive and defensive spells to take out enemies. Exactly how the player will control all four characters simultaneously isn't quite clear yet.

Of course, combat isn't the only danger that Lloyd and pals will face. Within the various dungeon areas are environmental hazards, such as walls of spikes that slam shut every few seconds, necessitating quick timing to avoid being ventilated. The traditional block-pushing and switch-pulling puzzles also make appearances throughout the game.

After all that fighting and puzzle solving, the game's town sequences will likely come as something of a relief. Full of townsfolk to talk to and buildings to pop your head into, it appears that the game's towns will function in the traditional RPG manner, as a place to rest, recuperate and figure out what to do next.

Graphics Let's not beat around the bush here: Tales of Symphonia is shaping up to be the best looking GameCube RPG to date. Of course, this isn't very surprising when you consider that the game's only competition is a pair of Dreamcast games. Nevertheless, the game looks pretty darned good by any standards.

Unlike recent iterations of the Final Fantasy series and the Xbox's meager assortment of RPGs, which have attempted to give their characters and worlds a more realistic look, Tales of Symphonia's visuals are firmly in the SNES-era mold of bright colors and cute characters.

The influence of anime on the game's look cannot be overstated. From the characters' big heads and even bigger eyes to the bright, primary colors of the hero's armor, the hand of famed manga artist Kosuke Fujishima is obvious.

Whereas the previous Tales games relied nearly exclusively on two dimensional sprites, Symphonia is rendered completely in 3D, albeit with a touch of cell shading.

The few spell effects that we've seen have been nice enough, with fairly impressive lighting and transparency effects. Although nothing that we saw was as over-the-top awe-inspiring as, say, a Final Fantasy summons spell, it's certainly possible that such attacks are tucked away later in the game.

Outlook While previous Tales games have never been smash hits in U.S., they have garnered a dedicated following among hard-core RPG fans. With an upgraded battle system, slick anime-inspired graphics and all the trappings of the classic role-playing games of yore, Tales of Symphonia just might be poised to bring the series to a wider audience. After all, it's not like there are a lot of other GameCube RPGs that it's going to need to compete with.

We'll have gobs more information on Tales of Symphonia as its too-distant April 2004 release approaches.